Creative citizenship to defend ourselves is the better option
The state has failed utterly to protect South Africans, so now we need to move beyond the current form of protest towards a politics that is citizen-centred and employed to defend civic spaces. By
On Thursday, 15 March, what seemed like a small headline told us that the National Education, Health and Allied Workers’ Union (Nehawu) had ended its strike after the government had agreed to a pay rise of 7%.
As is usual in these situations, there are never outright winners and losers. Some of the scenes of doctors being dragged out of hospitals and intimidated, directly putting patients’ lives at risk, were deeply disturbing. They signify the collective loss we all experience when acts of violence occur.
In the prologue to their book Enemy of the People, authors Adriaan Basson and Pieter du Toit ask poignantly: “How did a man who swore on 9 May 2009 that he would commit himself ‘to the service of our nation with dedication, commitment, discipline, integrity, hard work and passion’ come to embody everything that is wrong with South Africa?”
They go on to say that “... Zuma and his circle of rogue protectors broke not only the country’s spirit and moral fibre but also our hearts”. And our hearts still break for what has been and what is being lost.
While the strike was continuing, the EFF was also racing around the country calling for a “national shutdown” on Monday, 20 March. Threats of violence were part and parcel of these “announcements”, intimidating many into staying home.
Is this what democracy looks like – fomenting violence and shouting intimidatory threats?
The EFF is a democratically immature 10.8% party. But the danger of Malema (or his ilk) is always a spectre hovering over South African politics.
The government, for its part, responded to calls for a shutdown with its usual incoherence and an overblown show of force – 3,400 SANDF soldiers have been deployed in “Operation Prosper” until 17 April.
Why, one asks? There is nothing about this that speaks of a government determined to make us all live without fear of violent crime. Instead, it feels rather like a deployment for political purposes.
In its communications, the government warned against those agitating for “regime change”. What Mugabe-esque language is this that has now permeated our discourse? It has no place in a democracy.
The government’s task is to protect the right to freedom of expression and peaceful protest as well as citizens’ safety, should there be violence and intimidation. That’s the sum of it all, really. But we have come to expect only a lack of wisdom from our government, led by an inert President.
South Africans live in fear of violence. We are not safe on the streets despite the President’s mealy-mouthed assurances in Parliament recently about the effectiveness of our police service. We are not safe in our homes and we are not safe on highways and byways. Drive-by shootings of the kind that saw Bosasa liquidator Cloete Murray and his son tragically killed on Saturday, 18 March are now almost commonplace.
The assassination of the Murrays should send a chill down our spines. As with the assassination of Babita Deokaran, there seems to be very little political will to get to the bottom of these killings. The reaction from those in power has been almost muted, and we must wonder why. At the very least, it suggests a complacency, which will no doubt have a dampening effect on investigations into corrupt actors.
This is a society with impunity at its core because consequences are in short supply. As South Africans, we now fully understand that our weak and compromised state is truly incapable of rescuing us. As the old US civil rights refrain went, “we are the ones we’ve been waiting for”.
US activist and academic Harry Boyte has worked extensively on reimagining the civic space and understanding how societies can move towards a more citizen-centred politics. Essentially, Boyte argues for a new kind of politics that centres on “negotiating a common life”.
The creation of so-called free spaces is essential to the notion of citizens organising themselves. Boyte, with his colleague Sara Evans, relies on the model at work in 1960s America. During the civil rights movement, civic spaces were reimagined in venues ranging from churches to beauty parlours. Boyte champions the notion of broad-based community organising in colleges and other spaces, with citizens as “co-creators” with the state and not simply voting fodder.
At present, protest action in South Africa is mostly embarked on by those who have been forgotten by the powerful once an election has come and gone.
Citizens need to develop a sense of agency that moves beyond the protest. This requires sustained and systematic forms of mobilisation, whether in small community groups or larger ones. Unfortunately, citizenship today is largely passive: citizens “receive” government services and are bestowed rights.
Are South Africans mature enough to do what Boyte suggests, and “work across differences to solve common problems, advance justice, and create community wealth, from schools, public spaces, libraries and local businesses to art, music and healthy lifestyles”? In the examples he cites, teams of young people in educational spaces worked on “real-world issues” such as “campaigns against bullying, sexual harassment, racism, teen pregnancy and gang violence”. They went on to “building playgrounds, championing healthy lifestyles, and making curriculum changes”.
In a South African context, we can see where such “creative citizenship” – co-creation with the state – could take us. In some instances, many communities are already working but not as “co-creators”, for the state is often wholly absent.
All sectors of society need to be part of this reimagining of civic life, including business, which is a key actor. As the World Economic Forum argues, companies need to see the benefits of “defending civic space”, which includes “the freedom of citizens to organise, speak up and protest against failings and corruption”.
In a 2017 report, the forum cited the “fraying rule of law and declining civic freedoms” as a major global risk for companies. In South Africa, this will mean that business, too, recreates its role as “citizen” to operate ethically regarding, inter alia, workers’ rights, occupational safety, transparent tender processes and executive pay.
This is a difficult time and will be one of continuing tension. Our country needs urgent justice for those on the margins of society: it is a challenge that is micro and macro, local and national.
We now fully understand
that our weak and compromised state is truly incapable of rescuing us. As the old US civil rights refrain went, ‘we are the ones we’ve been waiting for’